‘Sword Art Online’ Live-Action Series Adds ‘Lara Croft’ Writers

If you forgot that Sword Art Online was becoming a live-action series, then here is your latest reminder. A new report from Deadline just confirmed Skydance Television has hired Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’s screenwriters to pen the series.

According to the reports, Patrick Massett and John Zinman have been hired to pen scripts for Sword Art Online. The pair are best-known for penning Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and executive producing Friday Night Lights. The two will serve as screenwriters as well as showrunners and executive producers on the the live-action anime adaptation. Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar) was the first screenwriter to join the project, and producers David Ellison, Dana Goldbert, and Marcy Ross will also oversee the series.

The news was released alongside a comment from Skydance Television president Marcy Ross. You can read the executive’s statement below:

“We’re already deep in development with Patrick, John, and Laeta on our larger than life Skydance SAO series, in which we aim not only to satisfy the franchise’s enthusiastic sci-fi and anime fan base but also to appeal to new TV audiences the world over.”

Fans have known for awhile that Sword Art Online would be getting a Hollywood adaptation. The news broke last August as Skydance confirmed it had gained rights to film the series. The original report stated the studio would produce the live-action adaptation and create a unique virtual reality experience for audiences to participate in once the show airs. There’s been no further details about what that after-series technology will entail, but Skydance’s CEO David Elison has said it would be a “full-scale and wide-ranging set of live action franchise extensions across our business verticals.”

If you are not familiar with Sword Art Online, then you should know the series is one of Japan’s most popular animes. The franchise was created by Reki Kawahara and has an anime with two complete seasons under its belt. The series follows a boy named Kirito after he and thousands of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality video game known as Sword Art Online. The gamers must band together to defeat the game’s final level to escape, but Kirito and his guild learn there is more behind their prison than they were originally told.

Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale hits Blu-ray and DVD on December 19, 2017. It’s available to pre-order now.

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